“Resolve never to quit, never to give up, no matter what the
situation.“
Jack Nicklaus
A short message today but all th ebetter for that. My golf challenge was about many things several of which were nothing to do with golf. I had joked prior to the start of it with a friend that I was the sort of character who really would have benefitted from National Service. A short period of time where I had discipline forced on me. It may well not have worked but I hoped that by working at the challenge for a full year I would teach myself some good old fashioned “stick-at-it-ness”.
“I tell you what Arnie – isn’t it a great feeling not being a quitter…”
I was a huge motorsport fan before I started into golf and used to watch in awe as Michael Schumacher would never give up. Even if he was relegated to the back of the field with just a few laps to go he would keep at it as hard as possible. Time and time again he seemed to pull a few points out of seemingly thin air. By relentlessly never giving up he won championships titles just as much as he did when he was leading the field through inspirational driving.
That “never give up” attitude is so prevalent at the top level in so many sports but nobody – not even Tiger – seems to have captured it as strongly as Nicklaus. There is something enormously inspiring just watching Jack’s body language when he is out on the course – whether he was winning or not. In the last few weeks of my challenge when my scoring deteriorated I started to lose some faith. I had confided to my wife and John Shortt at Golf Digest, where I wrote my monthly column, that I really didn’t think I would do it. It seemed to have become too big a challenge and I was getting swamped by my own messed up brain. But I had made a commitment to myself to “never give up“. I made a commitment to keep at it even if things were tough and I resolved to see it through. It was my own, slightly odd, version of National Service and I stuck at it.
By sticking at it I made my breakthrough with three days to go. That, without a shadow of doubt, was the biggest lesson of the year.
“Never, ever give up.”
It’s an great lesson for life.
Interesting that you mentioned the value of the National Service. After barely making it through high school, then working 1 year in concrete construction, I joined the Navy. I trained as a Nuclear Power Reactor Operator on submarines. I started the training barely making the cut after each stage of training, but I didn’t give up and kept applying myself. I gradually learned how to learn and after over 2 years of training, I graduated #1 in my class. My 6 year enlistment, which I hated every day of, definitely taught me discipline that helped me in my subsequent software career and now in golf. There’s got to be a better way to learn discipline though than joining the service
Sooooooo true Mr. Scratch!!!!
“Never, ever give up.”
It’s an great lesson for life.
‘Tis a lesson you should heed,
Try, try again.
If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try again. – Thomas H. Palmer (1782 – 1861) Teacher’s Manual (1840)
Dale Carnegie:
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
It is a great lesson.
I think Tiger is someone that does it pretty well today, though. A lot of it has to do with the fact that he’s enormously talented but he’s really the only player out there who will be no where near contentention going into the weekend, yet considered a threat to win.
It’s a crucial skill.
Tiger shares that Nicklaus/Schumacher gene for sure. But the key things is to not regard it as a “gene” but as something that can be learned and incorporated into our characters.